Summary

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8… (1911)

DICHOTOMY (Gr. δίχα, apart, τέμνειν, to cut) , literally a cutting asunder, the technical term for a form of logical division, consisting in the separation of a genus into two species, one of which has and the other has not, a certain quality or attribute. Thus men may be thus divided into white men, and men who are not white; each of these may be subdivided similarly. On the principle of contradiction this division is both exhaustive and exclusive; there can be no overlapping, and no members of the original genus or the lower groups are omitted.
Source: Wikisource

Get perspective with Kwize: daily news enlightened by great literature